Nelson McCausland MLA
(Democratic Unionist Party - Constituency: North Belfast).
A personal blog in which I comment on a wide variety of issues, political, cultural, social, historical and religious. If something takes my attention, then I may well comment on it.

Monday, 21 December 2009

Belfast Media Group

Some time ago I published a comment about the Belfast Media Group, headed by former Sinn Fein councillor Mairtin O’Muilleoir, and the MacBride Principles. At the end of it I said, ‘It would indeed be interesting to know the employment pattern in the Belfast Media Group, which includes the Andersonstown News, South Belfast News and North Belfast News.

Well now we don’t have to wait any longer because the Equality Commission has published its Fair Employment Monitoring Report for 2008 and we know that the Belfast Media Group has 67 employees but has less than 10 Protestant employees amongst that number.

In Equality Commission reports, where the number of people from a particular community is less than ten, it is simply recorded as such and no specific figure is given.

It could therefore be 9 Protestants but equally it could be 3 or 2 or 1 or none! Meanwhile the number of Roman Catholics could be 58, 59 or 60 or perhaps even 67 out of 67. What is certain is that it far below the figures that would reflect the percentage of people in our community who are Protestants.

This is certainly a case of Mairtin saying, ‘Don’t do as I do but rather do as I say!’